arXiv AI By Tianzhu Zhang

When Should LLMs Trust Their Own Revisions? A Risk-Aware Study of Intrinsic Self-Correction

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The paper investigates intrinsic self‑correction, where a language model revises its own answer without new evidence. Across 29 open‑weight LLMs on BoolQ, GSM8K, and Corr2Cause, the study tracks how revisions change correctness, revealing that while some models improve significantly, others lose a notable fraction of correct answers. The authors compare three runtime strategies—keeping the initial answer, always accepting the revision, and selectively gating revisions—and find that the best approach depends on the model and task, suggesting that self‑correction should be treated as a revision policy rather than a uniformly beneficial second pass.

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